


Behind locked doors

by NotAfraid



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Borderline Personality Disorder, Dark Tony Stark, Insomnia, M/M, Patient Loki Laufeyson, Psychiatrist Tony Stark, Psychological Disorders of any kind, psychiatry AU, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-08
Updated: 2017-12-23
Packaged: 2018-06-07 05:24:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 5
Words: 6,817
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6787186
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NotAfraid/pseuds/NotAfraid
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After a maniac outburst in the middle of New York, Loki Laufeyson was being transferred to a psychiatric hospital. The complexity of his disorder is being well hidden by the highly manipulative patient, until the ambigious and hardworking psychiatrist Tony Stark picked up his file and decided to dig deeper, to prove his new and dubious ideas for the treatment of severe cases.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This story will most likely turn pretty dark and especially with the psychiatric background this might be triggering. If you think this might be the case, please leave, for everyone else, I hope you will like it.

It says, that psychiatrists often have strong tendencies to develop psychological disorders themselves und use their focus on other peoples suffering as a method to keep themselves covered, often without even realizing it. 

That thesis is easy to believe, when one would see the way Doctor Anthony Stark was going through the files, the way his eyes scanned over the pages too quickly, the certain way in which he changed from turning the pages every few seconds and picking up his pen to make frantic notes, with wild, messy letters.  
It were all capital letters, sharp and clean and only written with that little bit too much pressure, that made the tip of the pen dig deeply into the paper below, just a bit more and it might just rip. 

A minute passed, he reached for a cup of cold coffee with one hand, and for the next file on the never ending pile beside him.  
Then he stopped, and the tension, which was dulled by an inhuman lack of sleep turned to something different. Curiosity. Excitement. 

He put the cup away, almost spilling some of its content on the papers, so eager was he to start reading.  
Even quicker, his eyes flew over the pages now, only to re-read them anew. Something caught his attention, made his heart beat quicker, his lungs fill with something else than the smell of disinfectant and old paper. Something more alive. 

With excitement he noticed that the person, this file was devoted to, was only a few levels below him.  
Close enough to put the tedious file away and get up to see everything for himself. But he sat in complete silence.  
The pen next to him, wasn´t being picked up the next twenty minutes, in which he only payed attention to the content of the file. He was sure he wouldn´t need to write anything down.

Psychiatric Institute of New York  
Department 4, Ward 11  
Patient number, 23011  
Age, 23 years  
Loki Laufeyson


	2. Probability

It hadn´t even been a challenge for Tony to get Loki Laufeyson as his patient. Actually it had been dreadfully easy to reach his goal. A little small-talk, a few jokes, the mention of an important research study and a signature later, Loki´s name was being transferred to the list of his few, few patients.   
Some people did ask further about his intentions, badly hiding their curiosity behind lame jokes, because it was known that even though Doctor Stark was very charismatic and a lot of fun to be a round with, some patients have described him as heartless before.

~

It was one of Loki´s better days. Not that he would let it show, if it was or wasn´t…it demanded all of Loki´s skill to make the Doctors think every day was as at least as good as this one actually was. And still, with all that effort and work put into tricking them, and tricking them successfully too, he was still locked up in here, with no outlook on soon dismissal.

The thought was maddening and its irony never failed to make him laugh…as if he hadn´t enough madness already, this god damned bedlam kept on shovelling more and more of it on him.  
Showing this madness and ruining his entire plan, was tempting though. 

The thought of letting it all out made his blood pump quicker through his veins, thhinking of, ruining as much as he could and everything and everyone he could get his fingers on, forcing them to knock him out with tranquilizer again, letting them lock him up again, simply getting himself in the most critical and dramatic position he could...maybe then someone would come to visit him. Maybe Thor would bother to check on him for once...probably when he actually had to fear for Loki´s life again, he would try to deal with this tedious building, this tedious atmosphere, those tedious people and last but not least his tedious little brother, that stood in such a harsh, ugly contrast to his beautiful, shining life.

Loki didn´t grant him the peace of having his insane brother out of his life. 

~

He strode through the harsh light which filled the corridor and made his skin seem even more paper-like.   
Pale, thin and dry.   
Loki had no one to bring him some shit like this body lotion which smell he once liked so much, no one to bring him the shampoo which foam was always so soft...but he didn´t need it anyway. All he needed was to get out of here, and for that- for that he needed to be sane, pleasing, comfortable.  
He took a deep breath, just not deep enough to let the nurse walking beside him hear. 

The nurse large and bulky enough to get him to the ground just in case he snapped.

 

By now Loki had to pinch his cheeks to a painful point and often schedule minutes only to get that little bit of a rosey shine on them by force, which would make him seem more sane and healthier before his therapy sessions started, in which the Doctors eyed him so suspiciously, that every detail was of importance. 

Today he had done an even more thorough job, massaging his entire face and resisting the urge to just scrape over his face with his nails, until it would break.   
He found it hard to look in the mirror and /not/ look horrible, because it wasn´t fair, that he wasn´t free to look at miserable as he wanted to, but if he ever wanted to have that freedom again, he needed to play by their rules- he tried to coax himself into believing that looking better than he actually was, was a truimph over all those people keeping him here, a small truimph, over the people who failed their jobs by not being able to tell how bad, or good he was doing.

But for now he had to focus on quickly learning a new set of rules, the ones by which the new Doctor would play.

New Doctor…maybe his tenth new Doctor. The thought alone was actually making him feel so miserable with cold anger again, that his thoughts returned to scraping the skin off his face, his hands, ripping the hair from his scalp. But he didn´t have many tools in here and a nice face was still one of the most important ones. He couldn´t ruin that. Not now.

 

“Thank you.” He smiled at the man who had accompanied him, for security reasons only, when they stopped in front of a door. 

`Doctor Anthony Stark`, a plate in front of it said. 

“I think I´ll manage the rest by myself.”  
The nurse smiled back at him. He wasn´t an unfriendly person and still Loki despised him. Had to despise him.  
“I´m sure, good luck.”

 

However, the nurse still waited, until the Doctor himself opened the door, and invited Loki in with a flashing, bright smile, which Loki honestly didn´t knew what to think about. But he didn´t had to think about it at all, now had he? Just another station on his way to get out of this shithole, simple as that.  
Another level, of a game he didn´t want to play.

Tony stretched out his hand, and when Loki took it, he squeezed his with an iron grip, that made his bones grind together uncomfortably. Loki´s mouth opened, more from surprise than actual pain and he took a moment to look at the others face. It was different from all the other ones in here, not pasty and pitiful, but tanned, self-confident and charismatic. 

Loki had realized that the other was a pretender just like him, by the time Tony had let go of his hand. But two pretenders could work surprisingly well together.   
Both of them would just act as if they didn´t know the other was faking and both would get what they wanted. 

Loki a few steps closer to freedom and Doctor Stark another succesfully healed patient he could add to his list. He hoped that it would work this way. He finally deserved to have something go well for him, didn´t he? And if it only was about probability...it just couldn´t be that this would all go wrong again.

 

Loki had distantly noticed that the nurse had left, just after Doctor Stark had offered him a chair. Good. The quicker this would go, the better.

With a well practiced smile, which was small and polite and seemed very authentic and adequate in this situation, Loki sat down on the offered chair. It was more comfortable than the ones in the other offices and he realized that this Doctor had actually bought his own furniture for this shithole. Loki would have laughed if his main focus wasn´t lying on acting reasonable and sane.

The Doctor- Stark, sat down behind the desk, his smile still perfectly intact.   
He didn´t reach for a pen to write down everything he imagined to hear in Loki´s voice, so that was a good sign.   
Loki relaxed a little. This time fate was on his side for once, it would all go well...he was certain.

 

"Mister Laufeyson, I´m really looking forward to working with you." 

That statement however seemed to be thoroughly sincere and it was this sudden truthfulness, that made Loki feel a little uneasy.

“So am I, Doctor Stark.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, well, well...take a guess if the fate is:  
> A: On Loki´s side  
> B: Fucking isn´t on Loki´s side at all


	3. Pavlow´s dogs

It was awkward to say the least, Loki knew how to small talk, it was absolutely necessary in every single one of the manipulative games he had played since childhood- but he knew that there was something behind him.  
He wasn´t playing…he was /being/ played. But he couldn´t do anything at the moment, just had to act as if he couldn´t see the silhouette of something terrible behind the thin curtain of polite friendliness.

“Yes my day was good…I honestly feel as though I can really see the difference week after wee-“  
He was suddenly being cut off by the Doctor. His voice that was soft, charismatic was hard- hard and cold and somehow Loki had to think of unforgiving, iron as he began to speak.

“You can cut it now Loki. Are you aware of what they say about you in your file?”  
“I´m not allowed to read the file how should I-“ 

Again he was being cut off. It was infuriating. Feeling disrespected and ignored. He absolutely hated being ignored. He mattered, he mattered, he mattered…

“Well, I can tell you. You can even read yourself if you want to.” Tony laid the file he´d been carrying around everywhere for the past few days on the table. “Manipulative behaviour, strong personality disorder –the opinions divide on which one- endangering his own and other peoples safety…the list goes on and on but I can put it short for you: Hopeless case. Everyone wants to get through with you, wants to get rid of you…but they can´t simply dismiss you. Not after the shit you´ve pulled in New York…” 

Loki listened and he could feel the beating of his heart getting irregular.

“They were glad when I said I´d take you as my patient. None of them asked twice, they were happy someone else would put up with you, spare themselves the fruitless trouble of putting up with you…no one will ask about anything, no one will believe a single word you say.” 

Tony leaned forward and Loki felt like he needed to either vomit or scream, to get rid of the lump in his throat, stopping him from breathing properly. 

“But I´ll fix the mess you are.” He promised smirking at Loki and it probably was the trademark smirk that everyone adored, but it made Loki´s stomach twist with pure, raw fear. 

“Loki, tell me have you ever heard about experimental behaviourism?”

 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

“The dogs-“ Loki brought out and for a moment of silence, a hint of the panic rising in his chest was to be heard in the subtle undertones of his hoarse voice. He cleared his throat and it felt, as if his throat was too tight, too tight to breathe properly... “Pavlov´s dogs.” 

“Yeah, right, but you know it goes a lot deeper than that Loki. But you don´t really need to understand.” A flash of the uncontrolled anger he sometimes felt, went through his body- being treated like he didn´t matter, like he didn´t need to comprehend the situation…

“I´d like to get to know you for a little. I asked the nurses if it was alright if I watched you interact on your ward and luckily they were so nice to give you the room with the little window to the nurse´s lounge. Just act as you normally would…there´s no need to be ashamed of anything, I have a very technical look on human behaviour.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I haven´t been able to write the past weeks, I´m sorry...however this is un-beta´d and everything and if you find any mistakes, or if something isn´t clear, just let me know.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So it’s been quite a while but I decided to go on with it! Though my updates probably won’t be very regular, I’ll try. My writing style and understanding of the situation might have changed slightly so the way the story is written might differ slightly from the first few chapters.  
> This chapter is very meta though, I hope you still enjoy it!   
> Thanks for the encouragement it means very much to me!

Tony was a behaviorist through and through. He never quite cared for the almost philosophical interpretations of the human mind in psychoanalysis and couldn’t care less about the theories that described human behavior as something controlled by morals and the sense of righteousness. The definitions of those terms were blurred from the beginning and Tony had not much left for entire theories built up on something so vague.

He fell in love with behaviorism for how practical, clear and cold the theories were, how much sense they made and how they allowed him to understand other human beings the only way he knew how to: as complex machines, reacting to different stimuli by either wanting to get away from something unpleasant or seek something pleasant. Of course in reality things rarely were just as easy especially when one worked with crazies. 

But that was just something else Tony enjoyed, the challenge of disassembling and putting peoples minds back together, fixing them like one would fix a machine. Tony loved logic.

And logic was what Loki lived to defy.

 

———————————————————————————————————————

 

After Loki was returned to his new room, he sat down into a corner, quietly, without making a sound, staring into the distance with an empty gaze. Internally, he was raging, screaming but he didn’t allow himself to show even the tiniest bit of it, it would please the man who sat in the nurses room and had been staring at him for the past two hours way too much. 

He wasn’t one of the dogs he could experiment on. Loki swore himself that whatever would happen, Tony would get nothing out of it, even if that meant letting himself suffer by not giving his overwhelming emotions of frustration and anger any outlet.

It was something that he had experience with anyway, since he was a child he had learned to keep all those toxic emotions to himself, quietly letting them poison him until in irregular intervals, it all erupted in a big meltdown, or was slowly released in the mischief he found more and more comfort in the older he got, mischief that turned into mayhem without anyone noticing it in time.

That mayhem that had been growing within Loki never left, it was still there but for the moment being Loki could keep it quiet, motivated by the arrogant, self assured way his new doctor had acted. Spite after all was Loki’s strongest motivation, right next to jealousy. 

—————————————————————————————————————————

The nurses who knew doctor Stark to be a charismatic, flirty and funny person were surprised by how he had been sitting quietly, without moving anything but his hands, to take notes and his eyes to keep watching Loki who sat equally still in the other room. 

It felt oddly surreal.

No cheesy one liners, no smirks, no flirting. And yet he seemed more alive than he ever had inside these walls, it was an eerie energy flowing through him, that didn’t make him tire, even as the shifts changed and nurses arrived and left the room. And all that even though Loki hasn’t done anything that seemingly had any interest at all to a normal person. 

———————————————————————————————————————————————————

 

To shape behavior using operant conditioning, one of the main principles in behaviorism that could be used in countless different variations, there were two main possibilities. One could either reward wanted behavior by either removing an unpleasant stimulus or adding a pleasant stimulus. Meanwhile unwanted behavior could be punished by adding an unpleasant stimulus or removing a pleasant stimulus.

Simple. 

But the tricky part was determining what exactly was pleasant or unpleasant to one specific person, especially if this person was absolutely mad. 

————————————————————————————————————————————————————

It was easy to guess what Loki wouldn’t like. Countless issues were described in his file, and Tony was confident that with time he would find more things to add to this list, however it was difficult to find things Loki enjoyed. 

The word psychopath is of Greek origin, psychos pathos. The suffering soul. 

 

Tony knew of the meaning of the word and while he thought of it as a little dramatic, it didn’t seem too far off, when he began to study Loki. 

Within two weeks of watching Loki, Tony only found three things that seemed to ease Loki’s suffering, things that all too easily could be taken away.

————————————————————————————————————————————————————

Loki kept feeling that curious gaze on him, he could physically feel it, it itched and burned and was impossible to ignore.   
Loki always enjoyed attention, he had long passed the point at which he actually differentiated between positive and negative attention but this was different, simply because it was neither of the two.

It was a scientific curiousity Loki had never before been the center of. The constant awareness, he felt like he needed to have over every tiny movement, over every action he made, made time go past impossibly, torturously slow. 

If he wasn’t mad already, by now he would doubtlessly be. 

Only three times, he could forget about the piercing, calculating gaze and his own inability to do anything about it, except for not giving this freak doctor the satisfaction of feeling as if he had achieved anything.

In hindsight, it was three times too often. 

 

—————————————————————————————————————————————-

 

The first time was, when Sigyn came to bring him dinner. The room had had a cold, tense atmosphere, that could be felt even through the window and the walls, over in the nurses room but as soon as the young nurse with her light steps and the soft sincere smile, opened the door that changed. Just by entering the room, the whole atmosphere changed, the neon lights seemed to grow warmer, the smell of disinfectant was pushed into the background by the light flowery smell of her perfume, warm food and freshly washed hair.

On good days Loki liked to tell himself that if he were capable of love, he would love her.

“Hey Loki.” She said, sounding so wonderfully normal as if they were just meeting, out of both of their own free will. Sigyn put down the tray on the table and sat down. One of the things Loki appreciated about her, was that she never expected anything from him. She didn’t expect him to do or say something crazy or awful, like other people did. And after a while of getting to know Loki, she also learned to stop expecting him to be friendly, polite or even reasonable. 

Every day anew, she just dealt with what she got and before meeting her, Loki had never known just how much pressure there was on him from all the other people, who silently waited for him to do something.

“There’s stir fried rice and chocolate pudding, you like pudding don’t you?” 

Sigyns presence didn’t automatically make things perfect but it did make things just feel somewhat lighter. Made it lighter to get up, sit down and take a few bites, when he didn’t feel like eating at all. 

For over ten minutes, Loki didn’t speak a single word, however Sigyn didn’t seem to mind, despite the blandness of the room she patiently endured the silence. 

“I don’t despise it.” Loki finally said, his voice slightly hoarse, from not having spoken in a while and even sent a tiny, short lived yet sincere smile in Sigyns direction, who smiled back warmly. 

“Who possibly could?” She asked and for just a few minutes this meaningless exchange was enough to make Loki feel like there was something beyond his sick mind and the walls he was trapped in. 

The feeling had to fade, just like anything without a real foundation and way too soon, Sigyn left the room again, leaving Loki alone once again. Not completely alone. Not if one counted Tony sitting in the other room, taking frantic notes.

 

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————

 

A few days later, another moment of short lived relief followed in the form of the weekly art therapy. 

While he always painted over his drawings or misformed his clay statues at the end of the session, to not have it be over analyzed by whoever looked at it and thought that they were clever enough to catch a glimpse at Loki’s soul through it.

Or maybe the reason was that they might actually see more truth than Loki would like to tell, in his works, that always were so much more sincere than his words ever were.

When drawing or forming, just a small amount of the overwhelming chaos and darkness within him was untangled, some of the pressure was relieved. The therapist was a young veteran, who had left the army to use his art degree and help people. But even Steve, hopelessly idealistic as he was had long stopped trying to force Loki to share his work. Talk about it, work through it.

While it might be healing for him, he understood that forcing him could destroy the small outlet Loki was granted and granted himself. And so he read the newspaper and stayed quiet, pretending to not even hear the sharp scratching when the brush was pushed too hard against the paper, the breaking of pens or the long long silence, when Loki mixed colors, taking more time than some people might take for a whole drawing.

He would have loved to see Loki’s work before he destroyed it but he never even seriously thought about crossing that line and disrespecting Loki’s wishes in such a way. It would feel like he robbed the man of something he dearly needed and even if he was curious, he could never get himself to do that.

It was needless to say that Tony did not share the same respect and kindness of the art therapist, he was driven by ambition and curiousity, two things that did not care about breaking something sacred.

 

—————————————————————————————————————————————————————

 

The last positive change in Loki’s behavior, Tony witnessed when he received a phone call. They were not allowed to listen to the calls and the nurses became increasingly more uncomfortable when Tony kept demanding to listen to the conversation.

“It’s just his mother.” An older, experienced nurse tried to calm Tony, smiling at him. It didn’t work, Tony’s expression was tense with growing anger and none of his usual relaxed, joking attitude was noticeable anymore. 

“And we don’t have any reason to expect that these conversations are harmful to his healing pro-“ 

“Shut the hell up.” Tony cut her off with unsuspected harshness and her mouth just closed. Not only she went silent, the whole room did and stayed that way for over a whole minute, only interrupted by an angry, frustrated sound coming from Tony, who put his headphones in, staring at his screen with his shoulders hunched over as his fingers flew over the keyboard.

It was only because his knowledge about psychology was only paralleled by his knowledge about technology, hardware and software, that he was able to hack into the security system and caught the last half of the conversation.

“-oki, you need to understand that.”

“I do.”

Tony could sense that Loki was lying and his hand clenched into a fist. If only he knew what he was lying about.

But they seemed to change the topic and it would be a secret Tony couldn’t hope to unveil. At least not today.

“I love you Loki. Always will. I’ll come to visit next week, we could take a walk in this lovely park.”

“We only ever go to the park mum.”

A sigh from the other side of the line. And for just a moment Tony felt like he was doing something unjust. Maybe it was the lack of sleep or maybe it was the way that woman on the phone sounded somewhat like Maria. 

“One day we will go somewhere else. I’ll have a word with your doctor, there has to be an alternative, just as an exception.”

“Don’t. Don’t talk to him.”

Tony made a note of the sharpness in Loki’s voice. 

“There’s just no use. You know if talking helped, we wouldn’t need to go to this stupid park ever again.”

“We will see darling. Have a good evening, I can’t wait to see you again Loki.”

“Mum I-“

For a moment it seemed as though Loki wanted to say something but after a few seconds of silence he started over again.

“Me too.”

There was something true and innocent and vulnerable in Loki’s voice, something Tony had never caught before when observing Loki, something that made him shift uneasily in his chair.

Then the line was dead. 

Tony didn’t move for multiple minutes, until he slowly put out his headphones and began to torment the keyboard of his laptop with notes.

He had gathered enough to go from observing, to the next step. Behavioral modification.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note that there is graphic description of violence in this chapter, just stay safe guys!

Tony was convinced that the root of all Loki’s behavioral problems, were his lies. 

But realizing that, was not only the first step but also the easiest by far, Loki was an exceptional liar, mixing his lies with truths and his truths with lies, making it difficult to tell the difference.

Some people would even say that it is impossible but Tony had grown up learning that this word was but an illusion.

Everything was possible if you try hard enough.

That view theoretically could be very encouraging and motivating for a child but paired with Howard’s cool gaze, stern voice and high expectations it was a piece of comfort, a resort taken away from Tony.

It made every failure weigh heavily on him and not a single excuse that would lighten the burden was allowed to him. 

It was what over time turned the overwhelmed child into a hard adult, who would never allow himself to give up or decline a challenge. In fact, he was at a point at which he couldn’t live without the permanent pressure, like a diver, who would die if the pressure was suddenly taken off him.

And so it came that he never even thought about an easy way, his only focus was the effectiveness of his treatment. 

 

———————————————————————————————————————————————

 

When Loki was lead into Stark’s office for the second time, he actually felt an odd kind of excitement. The last few weeks had been torturous because it was nothing but a lingering feeling, nothing that could be grasped...whatever followed couldn’t be worse, at least the suspension would finally come to an end. And though there was no way that there wasn’t any trouble ahead, Loki had always preferred trouble over boredom.

 

The door opened, after Loki knocked on it and revealed Tony’s, by now familiar, face. It had become one of the many constants in the monotone life in the facility but only now that there was no glass separating them, Loki remembered just how those brown eyes shone with eerie determination and what a tense, electric atmosphere radiated from the man.

 

Loki often felt the same when he stared at his own face in the mirror. 

For a few moments, they just looked at each other in silence and Loki could practically feel the air turning heavy with the tension of the act they were both still holding up and the suspension of knowing that this act was about to drop, as soon as the door was closed behind them. It made his skin prickle, whether it was with excitement or fear, Loki did not know and he didn’t have the time to investigate the feeling further.

 

Then things started moving again, as though this moment had never existed and Tony smiled a little bit too broadly as he opened the door further to let Loki inside. 

 

“Have a seat, Loki. I know the last weeks were a little boring but believe me when I say that they were completely completely necessary for your progress.”

Loki didn’t answer. Tony didn’t care.

“But finally we can move on, you probably don’t realize but this first phase can take a lot longer than just a few weeks, we’re pretty lucky, ain’t we?” 

For one second Tony’s smile was so sincere and his excitement so genuine, that if one wouldn’t have known the context, it could have been almost endearing. But with how things were it was nothing but unsettling.

“Lucky me.” 

“Well...” Tony drew out the sound, lifting both eyebrows and drumming his fingers on his desk. “...maybe not so lucky. Look the last weeks were good but I need just a little more information, so I’ve got to run some tests, the more you cooperate the sooner it’s over, got it?” 

“I’m crazy not stupid.” Loki said dryly and lifted his chin, something that never failed to make him look like an arrogant prince, whether it be on the schoolyard years ago, a family meetings, or sitting right in front of a man whose insanity rivaled with his own.

“And you’re doing a fabulous job at that, I have to give you that, even when you pretend not to be. Big fan of your act.”

Tony had seen Loki move his lips, like he was talking to himself, just before he went to bed, tiny never changing rituals, like how for every meal, he picked up the fork, then put it down, picked up the knife and then picked up the fork again or just how he scraped his nails over his palms when he didn’t seem to like a situation.

Heaps of those tiny, barely noticeable signs still spoke of the same madness that had drawn Tony in when he had first read Loki’s file. And to be quite honest, he couldn’t wait for Loki to lash out and let him see the full extent first hand.   
Tony felt like a boy who had just gotten a brand new science experiment set.

 

———————————————————————————————————————————————

 

Loki followed Tony into a painfully white room, that seemed to be something in between a doctors office and a laboratory and as his gaze ran over the various instruments and devices, he felt the sudden urge to just turn around and run away. The urge was only controlled by the knowledge that he had nowhere to run to.

 

“Usually I do at least some flirting before I say that, but take off your clothes, will you?" 

“I beg your pardon?” Loki turned away from one of the odd machines he had been looking at and lifted a brow at Tony. 

 

“I’m pretty sure this isn’t your first check up, is it?” 

 

It by far wasn’t. And yet Loki knew that this check up wouldn’t be like the others. For a minute or two, he just stood there in the middle of the room, comparing his options, which in the end made him take off his shirt slowly, then his pants, leaving them in a heap on the floor, creating a contract to the almost painfully tidy environment.

 

The tiniest hint of something chaotic in a fully controlled environment.

 

When Tony looked away from his iPad, he briefly glanced at the untidy heap of clothing, as if it bothered him but in the end he didn’t do anything about it, he had more urgent matters to focus on. Loki looked odd, standing in the middle of the room, seemingly unbothered by the obscure nature of the situation, his sickly pale skin almost seemlessly fading into the background, unlike his black hair, that stood out in a sharp contrast, like a drop of spilled ink, marring perfectly white paper and then there were those intensely green eyes, that seemed to capture Tony’s interest in a way he couldn’t quite pinpoint. 

 

This fascination, that was somewhat different from all the other cases he had had, was a little too close to a loss in control, something that made a faint sense of panic rise in him. It probably was just how confusing Loki was, how mysterious...the only thing keeping his fear in check was the knowledge that he would get to uncover every single one of those mysteries. 

 

Again there was this tension between them, the one that was created by two equally mad people looking at each other- but both being in completely different positions. 

"Get on the chair." Tony patted a chair, which had an awful bit of similarity to a dentist chair and smiled once again.

 

He was surprised by Loki actually getting in the chair, with an absolutely unreadable expression on his face. Tony made a mental note of going through the videos the cameras set up in the room were making, to decipher this particular expression.

 

But just because the surface was smooth, didn’t mean that the water was peaceful, Tony knew that and it was the reason why he didn’t feel as triumphant as he would have liked to when he saw Loki half-lying on the chair, smiling almost serenely and looking as relaxed as anyone could be- if it wasn’t for the way that his pupils had turned into tiny black dots, making the green of his eyes even more prominent. 

 

“What are you going to do now Doctor?” 

 

Loki asked and his smile widened just a little, his gaze still fixed on Tony in an unnatural way and this time Tony smiled back.

 

“I’m sure you’ll like the next step.”

 

Tony entered a quick code on his iPad, a few letters and digits, more was not necessary to make metal cuffs tighten around Loki’s wrists, his ankles and throat.

 

It wasn’t as dramatic as it should be, it was just a short mechanical hum and then a tiny metallic sound when the cuffs clicked shut. Dangerously simple.

 

Loki’s lips parted and his brows knit together in a frown, as his mind tried to understand just what had just happened. Usually all the crazy things were happening only in his mind but the cool metal was as real as it could get and for a few seconds Loki’s breathing stilled, as he experimentally tugged on the bindings, 

 

For a few seconds everything was still, before the silence was ripped apart by an inhumane howl leaving Loki, as he ripped at the shackles and threw his head from side to side. 

 

The long scream hurt in Tony’s ears, it was travelling through his flesh, his bones, echoed in his skull and reawoke a heavy, ugly feeling in his stomach, one that Tony had always fought, since he was a child. It was guilt. Thick and cold and bitter- his worst enemy. It tried to stop him from doing the things that needed to be done, the things that were necessary to create something good. It tried to lure him into being egoistic and comfortable but he knew better than that.

 

He knew that he must not give in to this childish feeling, it was selfish to not wanting to dirty ones hands (ones soul) to help do good. 

 

And Tony knew how much good his work was doing, to help other patients, uncover new knowledge that would create new and better treatments, he just had to keep going. 

 

The screaming became even more terrible, raw and ghostly just before it died down and the tense body went limp within seconds. The air felt like it was still vibrating with the force of the outburst, Loki’s chest was heaving and Tony’s ears were still ringing. 

 

But Tony forced himself to slowly walk towards Loki, whose gaze was blank and fixed at the ceiling. He must not be weak now, he could not allow himself luxuries like that.

 

“I prefer being more upright about things...but I thought a trickster like you might approve of a little trick like that.” His lips were just about to curl up into his signature smile, when something warm hit him just above his eye and slowly ran down. Tony wiped it away and when he held his fingers in front of his eyes, he saw bloodied saliva.

 

Bloody like Tony’s teeth when he snarled at him. “You will regret this.” He hissed, sharp and low. “You will regret doing this.” It was a solemn promise and it was probably the first time Tony had heard Loki being entirely and thoroughly genuine. 

 

“Right now you can’t even scratch your own nose.” Tony said, after wiping his fingers in his coat. His voice was suddenly cold. “So I would be careful with what I say and do right now.”

 

Then he turned away to prepare different devices, unpack and clean equipment, make multiple notes and most importantly calm down. The next few steps have been what he had been working towards for the past weeks and he wouldn’t let his anger ruin it. 

 

“Now I want you to be aware that this has nothing to do with the following tests.” Tony explained, as he picked up a scalpel and a pair of tweezers and turned back around towards Loki. “This is just a measuring device that will precisely measure the chemical components in your bloodstream, in real time. In other words, it can tell me how you feel about things, you can lie to me but chemistry always tells the truth. And if you’re thinking: who invented this revolutionary device, then you need to look no further, the genius inventor is standing right in front of you.”

 

Tony was back to his usual cheerful showman self, smiling and presenting, as if there was actually an interested audience in front of him, instead of Loki who didn’t react or even looked at him.

 

“But now you’ve got to stay still for your own sake, I sort of need to focus for a second there...”

 

Tony’s expression changed to one of complete focus as he placed the blade of the scalpel on the underside of Loki’s arm and without a moment of further hesitation, he cut the skin. It looked so effortless and Loki was watching in silence. After his outburst he now seemed completely disconnected to what was happening. 

 

There was no pain, Tony was nothing if not skilled with his hands and he needed to be, because the next thing he did, was place the small device, that wasn't larger than a pea, into the wound. 

From the moment Tony had picked up the scalpel, to the moment he set down the needle after sewing the wound shut, not more than five minutes have passed. 

 

“All done.” Tony said, smiling brightly as he checked the transferred data from the device that was now in Loki’s arm. “I’d give you a lollipop for being so brave but something makes me doubt that you would appreciate it.”

 

"You will go over this moment again and again..." Loki said with a tiny tremble in his voice, caused by an immeasurable amount of anger and pain. This reached so much deeper than the scalpel had cut. And this would not end up being just another successful project in Tonys life. 

 

“Now I get that this is sort of enough to process for one day and believe me, I’d really like to let you go to give you a bit of a rest, I fear that the already existing stress will affect my measurements but getting you back into this chair will be a huge hassle and then you’d be all worked up again, which would affect my measurements again...” Tony made a discarding gesture with his hand and shook his head, to show what dilemma he was in but for just a second there was something genuine in Tonys voice, the dreaded guilt. 

 

It didn't seem to have any effect on Loki, who was staring quietly at Tony. Only his upper lip twitched but besides that there was no reaction coming from him. 

 

“So let’s do this all in one go. You’re an impressive individual, I’m confident that you will be able to handle it just fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must have rewritten this chapter like three times, after I kept getting different input during my research. An amazing work I found is The Yellow Wallpaper, you can find it for free on the Gutenberg Project!  
> Thank you for your support, I love hearing from you!


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